


Hold Me Fast

by clottedcreamfudge



Series: A Fine Institution [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Cavity-inducing levels of sweetness, Epic Love, Fluff, Forehead Touching, Handfasting, Happy Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, New York Shadowhunter Institute, Sappy, The Institute - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Weddings, sex references, some mild peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clottedcreamfudge/pseuds/clottedcreamfudge
Summary: He wonders how the hell he got here; whatexactlydid he do to deserve this kind of bone-deep happiness, this elation that steals the breath from his lungs and makes his knees feel like water? Magnus looks so beautiful - he alwaysdoes- and he’s looking back at Alec like he’s the centre of the universe; like he’s only walking because his own legs might not support him racing forward.Alec isn’t sure what he did in a previous life to earn this, but it must have been fucking spectacular.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: A Fine Institution [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127447
Comments: 58
Kudos: 282





	Hold Me Fast

“Please tell me you didn’t call Magnus,” Alec says the second he wakes up, then spends the next five minutes coughing up a combination of ichor and salt water onto the dock. It’s excruciating and _gross_ , but once it’s all out he feels a little better. Izzy’s hands on his back are soothing - although the names she’s calling him under her breath in Spanish are decidedly _not_ \- and Jace is crouched down next to him, looking relieved and only slightly guilty.

“We drew like twenty _iratzes_ , Alec,” he says with a rough sigh, rolling his shoulders and standing up. He looks absolutely exhausted. “Izzy had to give you chest compressions. We thought you were dead, so yeah - we called Magnus, okay?”

“Okay, then saving me was pointless,” Alec hisses, pulling out of Izzy’s grip and getting to his feet on shaky legs, leaving a puddle of dock water behind him, “because he’s going to fucking kill me.”

“That’s a little dramatic,” Magnus says mildly, stepping out of a portal a few feet away and folding his arms. “I might yell at you a bit, perhaps, and use the handcuffs for something decidedly less fun than usual-”

“Gross,” Jace says conversationally, although he looks kind of delighted.

“But killing you today would seem a little counterproductive, wouldn’t it, darling?”

“It was _one_ patrol,” Alec starts to say, but falls silent when Magnus holds up a hand.

“And what did you expressly tell me you were _not_ going to do today?” Alec sighs, avoiding Magnus’s eyes as he begins to half-heartedly wring water out of his t-shirt.

“Go on patrol.”

“Right in one. And on any other day, I might roll my eyes fondly and remark on how classically _you_ that manoeuvre is - how admirable your dedication to your duty. However, I find myself more than a little put out that you chose to renege on our deal _today_ in particular _._ ” Magnus’s face is stormy when Alec looks at him, but underneath it all there’s _concern_ , and that is definitely so much worse.

“I know,” Alec says quietly, abruptly realising that Izzy and Jace have wandered off to give them some privacy. Traitors. “I’m sorry.” Magnus raises his eyebrows.

“For what, exactly?” Alec sighs roughly and runs a hand through his sopping wet hair.

“I’m sorry for going on patrol five hours before our wedding,” he says eventually - and _means_ it. He really is sorry, and he shouldn’t have done it; it had been really fucking stupid, now he takes a moment to think about. 

It’s just that the wedding has him a little bit antsy, and he’d needed to burn off some energy. He hadn’t really expected to be dragged into the water by a Kappa, almost drowned, and then ratted out to his fiancé by his concerned siblings.

Magnus lets out a weary sigh and in the breath of a moment is in front of Alec, fingers gripping at his shoulders and pulling him down into a fierce hug. Alec goes willingly, burying his damp face in the crook of Magnus’s neck and letting out a shaky breath.

“I’m so sorry, Magnus,” he mumbles, feeling absurdly grateful all of a sudden that he’s here. “I’m just so _nervous_ and you know how I get when I don’t have anything to do.”

“You make stupid, reckless decisions regarding your own health and wellbeing,” Magnus says matter-of-factly. “Yes - I’m aware.” Alec chuckles wetly and realises abruptly that he’s on the brink of tears.

“Fuck, sorry, I’m completely soaked,” he says, pulling back from the embrace but keeping Magnus in reach. “And now, so are you.” Magnus rakes his eyes over Alec’s body, and while he’s most likely checking for any obvious injuries, Alec still kind of has an automatic response to such a searching look; he shivers slightly and shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny, which has Magnus’s face moving from concerned to amused.

“Later,” he says mildly, before waving his hand and, in a flash of blue that tastes a little like electricity and copper, Alec’s clothes are completely dry.

“Thanks,” he says gratefully, then pulls Magnus back into his arms, because he’s an idiot and it’s possible he doesn’t deserve this man.

Eventually Jace and Izzy get bored of waiting for them to finish and wander back over, Jace complaining loudly at the amount of Alec’s _“gross lung water”_ he got on his shoes, and normality is restored. For a given value of ‘normality’.

“I’ll portal you all back to the Institute,” Magnus says firmly, looking pointedly at Alec when he opens his mouth to protest. Alec wisely shuts his mouth and nods instead, and the sting of Jace’s whispered _“whipped”_ is slightly soothed by the small fire Magnus helpfully starts on Jace’s left sleeve.

“What the fuck, Magnus?” he yelps, Izzy and Alec doing absolutely nothing to help as he pulls off his jacket and throws it to the floor, eventually managing to stamp out the flames. The jacket is completely unharmed, the flames having apparently been nothing more than a very realistic illusion, but the spectacle had been _very_ real.

“Was that necessary?” Alec asks Magnus mildly, but he’s grinning so wide his face hurts, so it’s not like he has a leg to stand on.

“Completely,” Magnus replies, straight faced. Opening up a portal with a wave of his hands, he adds, “and if you must know, Wayland, it’s quite often the other way round.” Jace chokes like he’s the one who just swallowed several cubic feet of dock water, Izzy laughing joyously as she drags him unceremoniously through the open portal. Alec darts forward to press a kiss to Magnus’s cheek, but he turns his head at the last second so Alec gets his mouth instead. It’s quick - chaste - but it still has Alec’s breath hitching slightly in his throat. He wonders if this feeling will ever get less overwhelming.

“I’ll see you later,” he murmurs, and Magnus smiles softly at him.

“I’ll be the one in the tux.”

➼

As Alec steps out the other side of the portal, he feels the wards settle around him like a blanket being laid across his shoulders. Jace is still muttering mutinously under his breath, no doubt threatening Alec’s fiancé with all manner of horrible things, but Alec finds it easy enough to ignore him.

“We’re back,” he says softly, and the lights of the corridor ahead seem almost to flicker slightly in welcome.

“Okay, both of you need to go and shower,” Izzy says, wrinkling her nose at the two of them and putting her hands on her hips. “Then literally all you have to do later is turn up looking presentable. Alec, you also have to say the right name and keep your kiss at the altar child-appropriate - think you can do that?” Alec rolls his eyes.

“No, I was just going to hoist Magnus onto the dais and-”

“I miss Repressed Alec,” Jace interrupts loudly, looking slightly mournful. “Remember him? He didn’t even know what sex was. Better times, Alec - better times.” Alec snorts.

“I knew what it _was_ ,” he argues, rolling his shoulders and realising he might have actually pulled something in his back when the Kappa dragged him under. Fucking typical. “Also, why are we talking about this? I don’t think I want to be talking about this.”

“I’m finding it _very_ entertaining,” Izzy comments, which is a sign that they really do need to stop; anything Izzy finds entertaining is almost definitely unfit for public consumption. Or very violent. Or, Alec suspects, _both._

“Shower,” Alec says firmly. “That’s where I’m going now, because it has the benefit of being somewhere that isn’t _here_.”

“See you in a few hours, big brother!” Izzy shouts after him as he marches off down the corridor to his room - well, his _old_ room. He doesn’t technically need a permanent one anymore, since he lives with Magnus now, but he still stays here sometimes, and he likes the familiarity of his slightly lumpy mattress and threadbare sheets. 

Someone had gotten their wires crossed and attempted to clean his room out at one point - the Institute had not taken kindly to this. The heating in the offender’s own room had broken during a cold snap, their bulbs kept shorting out, and there had been a really weird smell coming from somewhere in their quarters for days that nobody could identify or remove. Alec had managed to smooth things over eventually, but he suspects that this _particular_ Shadowhunter is going to struggle to find good coffee in the Institute for the rest of their natural life.

When Alec gets to his room, the shower’s already on, the small bathroom filling invitingly with steam. Magnus’s apartment may have all the mod cons - with the added benefit of Magnus himself being there quite a lot of the time - but there’s something to be said for having an in with the building.

Alec stands under the hot spray and lets the water ease some of the tension in his back. He can already tell he’s going to have some interesting bruises on his legs and waist from grappling with the Kappa, but he’s at least grateful it didn’t go for his face. He knows Magnus loves him, but that might be just a _bit_ much to forgive on their wedding day.

His stomach jolts.

“I’m getting married today,” he whispers to himself, and the lights flicker excitedly above him in response. He’s marrying a warlock, who is a _man_ , and they’re doing it at the Institute - a building with whom he regularly has conversations, and who still sends little shocks of electric pride through him whenever he touches the elevator control panel. His life is seriously weird.

And fucking incredible.

➼

Alec can’t breathe.

He’s standing at the altar, watching Magnus come up the aisle with his arm in Catarina’s, and he can’t _breathe._

He wonders how the hell he got here; what _exactly_ did he do to deserve this kind of bone-deep happiness, this elation that steals the breath from his lungs and makes his knees feel like water? Magnus looks so beautiful - he always _does_ \- and he’s looking back at Alec like he’s the centre of the universe; like he’s only walking because his own legs might not support him racing forward. 

Alec isn’t sure what he did in a previous life to earn this, but it must have been fucking spectacular.

Magnus is in front of him now, left hand held out, a soft smile on his face. The ceremony has started, Alec realises with a jolt, but he can barely hear the words of the officiant; his focus is entirely on Magnus and that _smile_ , holding him in place like gravity. Alec swallows and takes a ring from his pocket, reaching out to slide it onto Magnus’s finger and holding out his own hand to receive the same gesture in return. Alec slides their palms together, pulse jumping at the cool contrast of metal on skin, and grips Magnus’s wrist, Magnus’s own fingers coming to encircle Alec’s.

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood,” Magnus says eventually, voice clear and yet somehow impossibly intimate, “I have loved you, if not from the moment I saw you, then at least from the moment I _knew_ you. I have never known anyone as kind, generous, and self-sacrificing, and I never will again. You are the last person I am ever going to love like this.” 

Alec’s breath catches in his throat, mind flashing back to months before, to his proposal in the lower levels of this very building:

_“You’re wrong, Alec. You’re the last person I am ever going to love like this. I’d like to spend the rest of our days together convincing you of that fact.”_

Magnus’s smile gets a little wider, a little warmer at the recognition in Alec’s eyes, and he tries desperately not to cry.

“I pledge to love and honour you, not just for your lifetime, but for all of my own as well. Loving you has been, and continues to be, the greatest adventure I’ve ever known. I vow to give myself to you completely.” Alec’s vaguely aware that it’s his turn now, if the slight tightening of Magnus’s fingers around his wrist is any indication, but it takes him a few seconds to compose himself.

“Magnus Bane,” he says after a moment, voice a little rough, “you saw me when I couldn’t see myself. I would not be who I am without the love, guidance, and support that you have given to me, without question or reservation, at every turn. I love you more than I thought possible, and I’m going to keep loving you for as long as there’s breath in my body. I will guide and support you as you have guided and supported me, because there’s nothing I would rather do than be by your side. I vow to give myself to you completely.”

Magnus looks the way Alec feels right now: wrung out, a little desperate, horribly affected. He’s still the most beautiful person Alec’s ever seen.

The officiant steps forward and, with a wave of her hand, conjures a deep red ribbon that begins to wrap around their joined hands.

“Alexander and Magnus have come here before you today to pledge themselves to each other,” she says as the ribbon continues to bind them together. “With this ribbon they will be fasted, but it is ultimately by their words they will be bound. It is therefore my honour to announce that, by these oaths and the authority vested in me by the Spiral Labyrinth, Alexander Lightwood and Magnus Bane are now-”

 _“Married,”_ Magnus mouths along with the officiant, his smile widening until Alec’s completely taken in by it, his own face aching with an answering grin. Magnus reaches for him with his free hand and reels him into a kiss that feels like a promise, soft and unerringly perfect for all that their smiles seem to get in the way of it. Alec pulls back, but Magnus’s hand on his nape stops him from going very far; he tugs just a little and brings their foreheads together, Alec closing his eyes instinctively and feeling the strong, steady beat of his own heart at every point of contact.

The enthusiasm of their assembled friends and family eventually reaches Alec’s ears and he opens his eyes, smile only widening as he moves away from Magnus - from his _husband_ \- to turn and face them. 

Izzy and Clary, both in midnight blue dresses that shimmer with their movements, are crying and clapping; Jace’s face is practically splitting down the middle with the force of his smile; Alec’s mother and father, a grinning Max seated between them, look tearful but mostly composed. When Maryse catches Alec’s eye she starts crying in earnest, Max patting her consolingly on the arm as she shoots her oldest son a watery smile. Alec looks at the light spilling through the ancient windows, but it’s nothing compared to what he feels in the very foundations of the place he stands; the Institute is alive with it, made all the more angelic and _hopeful_ for the joy filling her chambers.

Magnus pulls gently at their joined hands and Alec can do nothing but follow, Magnus walking backwards with a sure-footedness Alec’s glad isn’t expected of _him_ right now; he passes through the crowd in a daze, the swell of cheers and music becoming background noise to the singing of his own blood in his ears.

The second they get out into the empty corridor Magnus snaps his fingers to dispel the ribbon - though Alec has no doubt it’s now very carefully stored somewhere in their apartment - and pushes Alec against the wall, leaning up to kiss him with a thoroughness that leaves them both breathless. Alec kisses back with everything he has in him; Magnus _knows_ how he feels, but he pours himself into it anyway, trying to express what his often-clumsy words fail to.

“I love you,” he murmurs when Magnus eventually pulls back, radiant and wholly _Alec’s._

“I love you too,” he replies softly, fingers tracing Alec’s mouth with a heady reverence that makes Alec weak, “Alexander Lightwood-Bane.”

Yeah. Alec’s really not sure what he did to deserve this, but it really must have been something.

➼

She watches, and she aches; it’s a good ache, stones and mortar heavy with the weight of love for him, and for _them,_ but it is nonetheless new. She doubts that her heart, so alive now for all that ‘alive’ means something different for her, will be this full again.

She watches, and she loves.

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of people asked for a wedding in this series, so I really hope this is what you were looking for. I love how much you guys love the Institute! Anyway, writing this made me very emotional so sorry about any tearful errors.


End file.
